The question that split the internet
The question is simple: everyone in the world will secretly press a red or a blue button. If more than half press blue, everyone survives; if not, only those who pressed red survive. Which one do you press? According to Know Your Meme, the earliest known version of this dilemma was posted in April 2023 on Reddit's polling community, r/polls. In August 2023 pills replaced the buttons and a Twitter poll gathered 68,774 votes: 64.9% blue.
In April 2026 the writer Tim Urban asked the same question again with buttons; his poll ended at 57.9% blue and 42.1% red. Because both sides have compelling reasons, the debate never ended. We ask the question in our own words and in an abstract form: nobody 'dies'; if the blue pressers fall short of the threshold, they are simply 'out'. We set the threshold at 50%: if blue reaches exactly half, everyone is safe.
Why is red safe, and why does blue matter?
For someone thinking only of themselves the answer is easy: red. Whether or not blue reaches the threshold, a red presser is safe. And if everyone presses red, nobody is out either. So why do so many people press blue?
Because the question is really about other people. Among millions, there will be people who press blue no matter what: those who misread the question, those who press out of kindness, those who trust others to do the same. The only way to save them is for blue to reach half. Pressing red guarantees your own safety but leaves those people to their fate; pressing blue tries to save them, but if the threshold is not met, you are out too. Which button is 'smart' depends on what you expect the crowd to do.
Threshold public goods
Economists have long studied this structure in the lab. In a threshold public-good game, a group puts money toward something everyone will benefit from if total contributions pass a threshold; if the threshold is not met, the contributions are wasted. In 1999 Charles Bram Cadsby and Elizabeth Maynes ran this game under different rules. Letting participants contribute any amount they liked, guaranteeing a refund if the threshold was not met, and offering high rewards all increased contributions; without the guarantee, a high threshold put people off.
The red–blue dilemma has no 'refund': if the threshold is not met, blue pressers are out. So pressing blue requires confidence that the threshold will be met. In 1989 Amnon Rapoport and Dalit Eshed-Levy separately examined the effects of two motives in threshold public goods: greed and the fear of being gypped. In this dilemma there is no room for greed; the appeal of red comes entirely from safety.
Stag or hare?
In the stag hunt game, named after an example by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, hunters either hunt a stag together or each catch a hare alone. The stag is a big prize but is caught only if everyone holds their position; the hare is small but certain. In his well-known 2001 paper, the philosopher Brian Skyrms argued that this game captures the central problem of social cooperation: an outcome in which everyone gains is possible, but reaching it requires trusting others.
The red–blue dilemma is similar, with one difference: here the 'hare', red, seems to harm no one; its harm is leaving the blue pressers on their own. That is why the debate keeps swinging between 'if everyone presses red, there's no problem' and 'but not everyone will'.
Everyone thinks the crowd is like them
In this experiment you predict first and choose second, and there is a reason for that. In 1977 Lee Ross, David Greene and Pamela House showed that people think their own choices are more common than they are: the false consensus effect. In their classic study, students who agreed to wear a sign estimated on average that 62% of students would agree, while those who refused estimated that 67% would refuse. This lab's 'How many people are like you?' experiment measures exactly this.
In the red–blue dilemma this effect matters especially, because the choice of button already rests on a prediction about the crowd. If blue pressers see blue as more popular and red pressers see it as less popular, both sides can easily convince themselves that their choice is sensible. On the result screen you see the two groups' average predictions side by side.
Not a poll, a live experiment
The result of this experiment is computed from all real participants who pressed a button on this page. If the blue share reaches 50% we say 'everyone is safe'; if not, 'the blues are out', and we show how many people pressed each button. We do the same calculation separately for today's players.
Two things are worth keeping in mind when reading the result. First, participants come of their own accord: like Twitter polls, our crowd does not represent the population. Second, nobody takes a real risk: pressing blue in a poll is easy, and facing real danger people might act differently. Still, one thing is certain: you cannot make this decision without thinking about what everyone else will do.